Phillip Sharp

Institute Professor Emeritus
MIT

Phillip A. Sharp, an Institute Professor at MIT, is a member of the Department of Biology and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. He joined the Center for Cancer Research in 1974, serving as director from 1985 to 1991 before becoming head of the Department of Biology for eight years. He was founding director of the McGovern Institute from 2000 to 2004. Sharp has authored over 400 papers. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Royal Society, UK. Among his many awards are the Gairdner Foundation International Award, the Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, and the National Medal of Science. His long list of service includes the presidency of the AAAS and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee, SU2C Project, AACR. A native of Kentucky, Sharp earned a BA from Union College, Barbourville, KY, and a PhD in chemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1969. His work studying the molecular biology of gene expression relevant to cancer and the mechanisms of RNA splicing earned Sharp the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.